Diarmaid MacCulloch's monumental new book is subtitled 'Europe's House Divided 1490-1700', which sums up this work's ambitious scope. Reformation is, as its title promises, a tour de force, marshalling disparate materials from the annals of Christianity across Europe and beyond, from all sectarian persuasions, over two cataclysmic centuries. It is an invaluable guide to the doctrinal issues and religious conflicts during this critical period of political crisis and religious complexity, issues and conflicts which continue to reverberate in our modern world. There was a real need for such a grand, synthesising book.

Reformation hardly needs further endorsement from fellow historians. It has been widely and enthusiastically reviewed in the broadsheet press. Such small cavils reviewers have recorded have been more than offset by tributes to MacCulloch's magisterial command of his unwieldy subject material, his readable and engaging style, and even his jokes; it takes a lot to make the reader of such a dense and intricately detailed book occasionally laugh out loud.

A master of understatement, MacCulloch also makes good use of a nicely downbeat turn of phrase, notably in the transitions at the beginning and end of chapters. Sometimes these have a tinge of 1066 and all That to them, such as MacCulloch's laconic characterisation of Archbishop Laud, scourge of reformers in the England of Charles I: 'Laud showed engaging affection for his pet cats and his giant tortoise [a beast that survived all the subsequent upheavals at Lambeth Palace until it was accidentally killed by a gardener in the mid-eighteenth century]. His tidy-mindedness and humourless dedication appealed to King Charles, another self-contained little man.'

But should we reviewers really be recommending Reformation to general readers as a 'good read', or the perfect Christmas present?

It is true that ranging, encyclopedic history books are enjoying a gratifying revival at present with general readerships. Scholars like Simon Schama, Felipe Fernández-Armesto and Norman Davies have led the way in Britain in convincing both publishers and readers that big history - history with a complex argument - can be a pleasure to read.

An important feature of Simon Schama's commanding hold over the public's imagination has been the three major History of Britain books which have followed on from his popular television series of the same title. The books are not simply 'books of the TV show'; they are serious and seriously ambitious works of narrative history, scholarly and thoughtful in Schama's inimitable style. They have become bestsellers because Schama's engaging personality and confident voice prevent the reader from being daunted or intimidated by even his most sophisticated argument.

Fernández-Armesto and Davies are equally colourful, charismatic personalities, whose distinctive voices and independent, strongly stated points of view give general readers a secure vantage point in the unfamiliar territories of global history.

It is the success of books like Europe: A History, Millennium: A History of Our Last Thousand Years and A History of Britain which has restored trade publishers' respect for general history readers.

MacCulloch, it has to be said, is no Schama. It is, indeed, his scholarly diffidence that marks out Reformation as a fine, consolidating work on the many reformations that made up the variety of early modern European sectarian beliefs.

Nor is Reformation a book that encourages the reader to pick it up and put it down at will. There are no user-friendly 'boxes' containing brief definitions and summaries of key ideas alongside the main text, of the kind used so effectively by Davies. Though MacCulloch's clearly labelled sections are a helpful guide to finding one's way through his narrative, his index is uncompromisingly austere.

Reformation is set to become a landmark for academic historians. But it was never intended, surely, to be a bestselling page-turner. It is neither a coffee-table book, nor the kind of trophy book one leaves lying around to impress visitors. In our family, a big book is the gift of last resort for that difficult relative, but I don't think many aunts and uncles will thank you for finding Reformation festively wrapped under the Christmas tree.

It is worth reflecting, though, that at £25 for more than 800 pages it is probably cheaper, and certainly better value, than those other perennial gifts of last resort, the pure wool scarf or a pair of designer socks.